Press hysteria aside, there is something romantically dangerous in the air pre-hurricane. It’s not that I am unaware. My spouse watches it so much I half expect to see that spinning red radar circle in his eyes reflected back at me when I talk to him. He is ready to run with the first report. I am not an evacuator. Living on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, evacuation just isn’t necessary. He did get me out for Katrina, but only because I finally looked at the weather radar the day before, and there was no Gulf of Mexico. It was all hurricane. He also got me out for Georges, and we moved our son out west for Gustav (Gustav???) at few years post-Katrina. He has backed off on evacuations, because what he learned about leaving for hurricanes is, with kids, you can keep the last four letters of evacuation, and replace the first part with vaca. Evacuations for us got well into four figures. Okay, to be fair, it may have something to do with my hotel choices.
I do have a very fond remembrance of Hurricane Andrew. The skies were black and the wind howled and the rain pounded, but our little family was safe at home with each other. The power was out, but the Fitzmorris family would not be deterred from having dinner. For some inexplicable reason Tom has always had a Coleman camp stove. And Sterno. I will never forget sitting around the dining room table, lit by candles, our five-month-old daughter in a car seat on top of the table as our son helped Tom cook hot dogs. We opened a can of beans, and to me it rates up there with any five-star restaurant experience.
Things have changed a bit since then. Restaurants remain open. I still have to go pay one of our regular dining spots because they were open with no power the other day, and the credit card machine was kaput. And my husband just greeted me with the news that another of our regulars is open today.
Good thing, too. In a recent upheaval here caused by a leaky pipe, that Coleman stove we used once appears to be missing. And all that’s on the shelves here is chocolate.
